PS2 and N64 in Close Race

No -- we're not kidding. PS2 narrowly beat out Nintendo 64 in hardware sales for the week of 11/27 through 12/3, according to games magazine Famitsu Weekly. The little platform that could reportedly sold 3056 hardware units versus 3306 for Sony's next-generation system -- a difference of only a few hundred and incidentally not good numbers for either platform to be sure.

The surprisingly close hardware sales figures could be attributed to a slumping market in Japan and lack of supply on Sony's behalf. The PS2 sales figure comes as an all-time low for the firm and software sales for are even less impressive for the console. Despite the fact that PS2's with the remote control sold out as soon as they hit retailers in Japan, Famitsu reports that they were bought largely by salary men who wanted the machine for its DVD features only. Even more, according to a representative from Sofmap, one of Tokyo's largest computer stores, very few games were purchased with the systems as buyers didn't seem interested in PS2 as a game-player.

Software sales for the original PlayStation, however, were much more impressive for the week, as you can see below: